From: Joe Greco <jgreco@ns.sol.net>=0A>I have no idea why anyone would be = paying Ma Bell $69/month for a phone=0A>line, unless you like giving them y= our money or something.=0A=0AIn my neck of the woods (Washington DC), the P= OTS line is the one that works =0Aduring a=A0bad=A0power outage, and has qu= alitatively different failure modes than my =0Acable service.=A0 Whether th= at's something one wants to purchase is a different =0Aquestion.=0A=0ADavid= Barak=0ANeed Geek Rock? Try The Franchise: =0Ahttp://www.listentothefranch= ise.com =0A=0A=0A
In my neck of the woods, you can get a basic POTS line for $15/month if it's important to you, local calls billed by the number of calls and the normal LD charges. Add a basic DSL service to that ($20) AND add a basic unlimited VoIP service to that ($20) and suddenly you have the benefits of POTS for emergencies *plus* Internet connectivity *plus* unlimited worldwide calling for ~$60/month, which seems to me to be a better deal than what Ma Bell is likely to be giving you even if you're managing to pay them $69/month. Toss in a UPS and a computer and you can even use the Internet during power outages. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.